It turns out love gets quieter when you live with someone. It stops making announcements. It settles into the walls, the routines, the background noise of two people sharing a life.
With Nadav, it appears in these small, specific habits.
He puts on bug repellant every time he steps outside, without fail.
I catch a trace of his aftershave as he leaves the apartment.
He dices tomatoes into perfect cubes, almost professionally, as if precision is the only way tomatoes behave.
He works with headphones on, completely absorbed, until he suddenly isn’t — leaning over my desk for a quick kiss before disappearing again.
He bikes to the grocery store and returns with whatever he’s decided we now need.
Most days, I’m not actively thinking about loving him. Daily life doesn’t prompt that kind of clarity. It’s errands, timing, who’s taking out the recycling. Love becomes something ambient, like a low hum in another room.
And then something interrupts the blur.
He leans over in the garden, his calf flexes, and I remember the magnetism of him — the physicality, the pull.
Or he hums while he cooks.
Or I walk through the hallway and that faint line of cologne follows me.
These moments surface the feeling I forget to name.
A small startle: Right. I love him.
Not dramatic. Not cinematic.
Just steady, patient, always there — waiting for me to look at him closely enough to notice it again.
